“In fact, evidence is starting to pile up in favor of cash transfers. A 2018 literature review by Ioana Marinescu finds that various unconditional transfer programs tend to boost incomes, as well as health and education. And despite the widespread belief that welfare benefits encourage people not to work, that outcome appears small. For programs that give out cash unconditionally – like the payouts from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which distributes natural resource revenues to the people of Alaska – the reduction in employment is negligible.“
The author gives compelling arguments for cash payouts.
So let’s hear from the other side against cash payments.
And here is an article behind a paywall from the New York Times
“Depending on when the snapshot is dated, Ms. Houpe might appear as a striving emblem of upward mobility or a mother on the verge of homelessness. But in either guise, she is among the people Democrats seek to help with a mold-breaking plan, on the verge of congressional passage, to provide most parents a monthly check of up to $300 per child.“
There’s the ideological split between Dems and Trump Party members. In Democratic legislation, you can see the poorest 20% get about a 20% bump, the top 1% get zero.
Republicans seem to have a knack for shoveling money to the top.
Apples and oranges. The distribution of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend does not come from tax revenues, it comes from interest on funds deposited in the Constitutionally protected Permanent Fund that are invested in the private sector. In fact, most of the money in the Permanent Fund, which is the corpus of the invested funds, does not come from taxes on resources, it comes from accrued interest on investment of the resource revenue and from allocations of interest gain taken from the General Fund where that money could have been spent by the Legislature. There is no comparison whatsoever between distribution of money to individual Alaskans from the earnings of the Permanent Fund and simply giving poor people money from the Federal Treasury.
It’s a bad idea, it does work in a society were everyone puts in that some on the left like a lot in Scandinavian countries. This country though there is significant percentage that doesn’t pay taxes or put in.
I would prefer to help citizens out though before doling out foreign aid and housing illegals though given a choice.
But it’s generated using the private sector as the economic machine produce wealth. The concept of direct government payments to the poor uses money drained from the economy through taxes. Doing so is the antithesis of the PFD and, therefore, it is disingenuous to compare the two as far as the effect on employment or any other economic factor.